Uniting

Today I had a long lunch break, well maybe not, but if I was supposed to be some where else it was not well publicized. The concierge tried to get reservations for Brasserie T for us and they would not make one until 1:30, ( the break was from 13:30 to 2:30) so we just dropped in, and of course they easily seated us. This was a place I wanted to try for two reasons, one is that they have Fried Cheese which I thought wold be like the cheese you get on the edges of a pizza,I thought Jodi would like this. The other reason is that the restaurant is an off shoot of Toque, which made me think the food would be stellar. I must love being wrong! The fried cheese was sort of like our fried mozzarella at home, it was a mild cheese but not mozzarella, accompanied by a sauce that resembled marinara, it was good, but not what I was looking for. Jodi did not partake. She ordered ordered the soup of the day, a squash soup , but she was not charmed. My steak tartare was more like a beef ceviche than a tartare, and I was overwhelmingly disappointed. Even the wait staff was haughty and arrogant, cute in Paris, not so much so here.

For most of the time we were in the restaurant we watched a homeless lady take a nap on the grass across the way. At one point a lady walked towards the homeless lady, then veered away. A few moments later we saw her approach the homeless lady again, and seemingly inquire and then walk away. Near the end of our lunch the homeless lady got up, picked up her stuff and walked off. I have noticed from the beginning of our time here quite a lot of homeless people, which seemed incongruent as it gets so cold here. Serendipity as usual answererd my question as we stumbled into St. James United Church to have a look-see and encountered a charming man who told us about the story of the church, the Canadian Health Care system (which he says saved his life - not the usual disparaging story one hears), and the homeless. So besides a better understanding of how the homeless are handled here (He said many homeless people do die here each winter because of the cold), I leaned about how Canadian churches got smart about a hundred years ago and united in order to pool their resources during the Gold Rush. Since I have often had an image of our creator in Heaven wringing His hands over our bickering about doctrine, I was impressed by this action.

Dinner was at be an INdiana group affair, which was well represented but sadly not all of us were there. Regardless it was fun to get together with old friends from through out the state and spend non-work related time! Sarah picked out a creperie that she felt was modestly priced, and would have if not for the beverages, alcoholic and not. I had a chicken and mushroom crepe and Jodi had a vegetarian version, both of us were well pleased, we ended this repast with a banana and nutella crepe which fell short of the Parisian version.